Page:The genuine remains in verse and prose of Mr. Samuel Butler (1759), volume 1.djvu/77

By which he had compos'd a Pedlars Jargon,
For all the World to learn, and use in Bargain,
75 An universal canting Idiom,
To understand the swinging Pendulum,
And to communicate, in all Designs,
With th' Eastern Virtuoso-Mandarines,
Apply'd an optick Nerve, and half a Nose
80 To th' End and Center of the Engine, close:
For he had, very lately, undertook
To vindicate, and publish in a Book,

And here let me inform the Reader, that I have discovered by the Poet's Manuscripts, that this, as well as the other Notes published in the Edition of Hudibras of 1672, is the Author's own; the Ignorance of which has led succeeding Commentators into several Mistakes. To give one Instance only—

A Saxon Duke did grow so fat
That Mice, (as Histories relate)
Eat Grots and Labyrinths to dwell in
His postique Parts, without his feeling.
Hudib. P. II. C. 1. ver. 205. 


Butler's own Note upon these Lines is,——— "This History of the Duke of Saxony, is not altogether so strange, as that of a Bishop his Countryman, who was quite eaten up with Rats, and Mice." Dr. Grey's Observation upon the Passage is—"He certainly alludes to the Case of Hatto, Bishop of Mentz (who was devoured by Mice) whom he mistakes for a Saxon Duke, because he is mentioned to have succeeded in that Bishoprick a Person who was advanced to the Dukedom of Saxony.———The above Story of the Saxon Duke could not, in this circumstance of the Mice, suit any of them: though amongst them there were some, that were very fat, namely Henry surnamed Crassus, who lived in the ⟨12th⟩ Century.
Had the Doctor been aware, that the first Observation was Butler's he would certainly have spared his own; since it is plain ⟨from⟩ thence, that the Poet must allude either to a real or ⟨imaginary Duke⟩ of Saxony, whom he distinguishes from the Bishop.